Posts Tagged ‘webgame’

It’s the new game from Preloaded - who you may remember from 1066 and Trafalgar. It’s basically their game for the Science Museum in London for their current Who Am I genetics-related gallery. As such, Thingdom is a virtual-pet game about breeding fluffy things – basically Spore for kids (So, just Spore then – Cynical Ed). Plus! explicit genetic recombination of attributes! To be honest, the second I got the above screenshot guaranteed that I was going to have to post about it, but that you can freeze your genetically inferior thingies by removing their hat on the ice levels also gains kudos. Play here, if you feel like breeding too.

I’m working my way through our tips, and I hit Go To Hell. When the game appears, crouched in the tiny window in a webpage, I almost move immediately away… but some genetic Boulderdash/Dig-Dug/Mr-Driller/Repton response makes me play a little. And it sort of clicks. This is overselling it, but imagine if looking glass (or someone else with a similar love of physics and gloom) decided to make Mr-Driller. While the worries about food, health and air are standard, what really shows off is the fluid model, with you digging into chambers releasing water which floods through the passages. It’s simultaneously a threat (as it removes the oxygen you need to breathe) and your primary weapon (as it removes your enemy’s oxygen too). Improvising flash-floods then scrambling to steal mouthfuls gives a strong take on a classic. Also, the aim to descend to 666 metres fits its digging-to-hell theme perfectly. Go play.

We like to start the week with sexual congress with gorgeous creatures who exist only for our total gratification by providing hyperorgasm. But when we can’t get that, we’ll settle for burning through a simple room-based escape game with delightful visuals, wit and some great jazzy music. What’s that, TheBlackBandit? Easy Joe, you say? That’ll do nicely. Go play.

Cordy, as Simon Parkin rightly notes, is a Little Big Planet clone, crammed into Unity. Only a couple of demo levels here, but feature all manner of Rube Goldberg styled levels of spinning, falling and crushing stuff. Very quick to play, and hopefully more to come – though, obviously, to be a real Little Big Planet clone, it’d have to include some manner of construction elements. WELCOME TO OUR ROBOT GAME state Silvertree media, proudly. I would be too.

I haven’t posted about this until now as the servers have been heaving for the last day with its mass Digg-age. After trying all yesterday, I finally managed to get into a game at about 2am last night. And it’s good! This morning? Servers are still sticky, but there’s a new Russian one as well as the English and (more populated) French ones. I’ve got in after a few tries. MAYBE YOU COULD TOO. And it’s worth the effort. Transformice positions you as a mouse, with the mission to get cheese and get back. With many other mice, trying to do the same thing. What stands against you? Physics. Evil physics. Luckily, one of you is the Shaman, who is abstractly meant to be facilitating all this hot mouse-on-cheese action. It doesn’t normally work like that. A video explaining it and a few other notes follow…Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the social web game du jour! It’s hilariously goofy. Basically, Dot War allows you to take 2 twitter account icons and wage a war against one another, by a process that transforms the icons into incy soldiers. It’s a little like Gratuitous Space Battles in that it’s the layout of colours in your icon that determines which mix of the various soldier types you get – so your chances of winning against any given opponent. It’s especially so in the easy mode where the troops go and fight automatically. There’s more skill in the mode where you get to give orders and so are able to squeeze a win. The aim is – basically – to do more damage to the opponents crystals than they do to yours. You don’t even need a twitter icon to be yours to fight – just enter in any names. You can see it in action below, and to start you off, you pick fights with RPS, Alec, Jim, John, Quinns and Me.Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a while since we’ve had a cerebral short-form indie platformer we could throw our weight behind with an unreserved recommendation. It’s a bit – as its creator Alexander Ocias says “confrontational” – but in a good way. It’s got the sort of meaningful choices interlaced through it which Fallout fans are always crying out for, has a genuinely oppressive atmosphere and at least a couple of killer endings depending on which way you choose to go. As a meditation about control and free-will – which is what I’m going to say it’s about – it’s really quite excellent. Also, jumping. You can play it here, here or on Alexander’s site here. I’ve played it a couple of times already, and I suspect I’ll go back for another one to try a few more choices.

TheBlackBandit, quite impressed, pointed us in the direction of this free platformer. Heir is clearly inspired by – but, I stress, not anywhere in the league of – the Team Ico’s critical colossus, but in 2D and without having to ride the annoyingly wonky horse through that fucking forest or having to deal with Edge’s equivalents of John Walker boo-hooing over it whenever it’s mentioned. The move to 2D actually immediately moves it closer to Prince of Persia, which – for me – sits at the head of this particular family tree.. Its three levels are a stylish example of the genre. It’ll be a fine way to start the week.

RPS Rule for the day: if it doesn’t have hexes, I’m not posting it. MasterBoo comment-threader sent us a very polite mail about Star Relic a couple of week backs. In fact, so polite and self-deprecating that I presumed it would be rubbish and didn’t check it out until this weekend. But it’s not rubbish! It’s nifty. It’s basically a simple two-player strategy game which you can play online here and I’ll explain it properly below…Read the rest of this entry »

I think it was Schizoslayer who pointed me at this, but I only had a chance to play it now. It’s Fractal, and it’s really quite neat puzzler from the makers of Auditorium. The idea is simply you have a limited number of new hexes to push into a grid, which displaces all the other ones. Form larger hexes formed of smaller ones to score points. Elegant and looks great. There’s a web-demo for you to play, but the full version will cost you fifteen dollars. GO FOOTAGE!Read the rest of this entry »

Catching up with recent indie-games, and hit up on Mamono Sweeper which Indie Games discovered and forwarded to us by the bad-damage-dice-for-a-monster-to-have d32. It’s a simple one: minesweeper meets an RPG. You level up by killing monsters. The numbers are the total number of monster levels adjacent to the square. Pick fights with monsters of your level or below not to lose HP and gain XP, so leveling up and allowing you to take on bigger monsters. Play here. There’s also a harder version available here. Pure game design. Love it.